BatesLine

It's always interesting to see the Money Belt make an appearance in unexpected ways. The latest manifestation is in a map of water usage by neighborhood generated by the Tulsa World from city utility records. The neighborhoods with heaviest usage -- an average of 125,000 gallons per year and up -- fall along a narrow band from Maple Ridge through Utica Square through Southern Hills and to the gated communities of south Tulsa -- with a slight gap between I-44 and Joe Creek. Maps of the highest priced homes, of members of city boards and commissions, of precincts with the greatest percentage support for tax increases -- all follow a similar pattern. Correlation does not imply causation, but it's interesting nonetheless and together with the PLANiTULSA polling this pattern suggests a kind of subculture different from the rest of the city.

According to the World's story about water usage, the average annual use for single-family homes is about 83,000 gallons.

The Tulsa World has provided a way to search the water use database, and I've been having a little fun with it. Our usage, for the record, about 10% higher than the average and higher than I'd like, but not bad with five people in the house, a large yard to water (occasionally) and a small fishpond to top off in summer.

Here's how our city elected officials measure up for annual water use in gallons, based on the address on their filing form:

Dewey Bartlett Jr.	Mayor	138,000
Preston Doerflinger	Auditor	327,000
Jack Henderson	Council District 1	54,000
Rick Westcott	Council District 2	124,000
Roscoe Turner	Council District 3	90,000
Maria Barnes	Council District 4	97,000
Chris Trail	Council District 5	57,000
Jim Mautino	Council District 6	148,000
John Eagleton	Council District 7	116,000
Bill Christiansen	Council District 8	87,000
G. T. Bynum	Council District 9	178,000

Our current mayor looks pretty conservative compared to previous incumbents, especially his immediate predecessor.

J. M. Hewgley Jr.	298,000
Bob LaFortune	504,000
Jim Inhofe	188,000
Rodger Randle	212,000
Bill LaFortune	281,000
Kathy Taylor	1,635,000
Dewey Bartlett Jr	138,000

Former Mayors Richard C. Crawford and M. Susan Savage no longer live in Tulsa. I couldn't find former Mayor Terry Young in the database.

Bartlett's annual usage pales compared to his main mayoral rival (Tom Adelson, 412,000 gals/yr) but is about four times as much as independents Mark Perkins (32,000) and Lawrence Kirkpatrick (33,000).

What about big institutional users? A search for Southern Hills turned up four accounts that seemed connected to the country club: 26,813,000 gallons per year. But the Southern Hills Marriott Hotel uses 30,067,000. Philbrook and its beautiful gardens use 11,089,000.

St. Francis Hospital? 219,766,000 gallons. That's a lot of handwashing.

Walmarts are big users. Interestingly, the Woodland Hills Walmart (6.9 million) uses almost twice as much water as the Admiral and Memorial Walmart (3.5 million). Irritated Tulsan would not be surprised.

The thirstiest Quik Trip in Tulsa is the truck stop at Admiral and 165th East Ave -- 2,552,000. The least thirsty -- about a tenth of the water -- is at Gilcrease Museum Road and the Sand Springs Expressway.

Lortondale Pool, a privately-owned pool (but the public can join as members), used 376,000 gallons last year. That's a lot, but not bad when divided out among the number of families that belong. It's certainly more reasonable than the consumption involved if each of those families had a private pool, however small.

Big Splash? 13,983,000.

Hmmm: On average, the six board members of Sustainable Tulsa use 173,167 gals/yr, a bit more than twice the average for a single-family home.

Our municipal customers: Owasso, 886 million gallons; Bixby, 1 billion; Jenks, 989 million; Glenpool, 298 million; Catoosa, 126 million; Sperry, 61 million; Skiatook, 62 million.

Rural water districts: Sapulpa Rural, 147 million; Osage County #15, 40 million; Wagoner County #4, 60 million.

What about Charles Hardt, our longtime city director of Public Works? Not in the database; he lives in Bixby, near 121st and Mingo.

The World story mentions that there are 140 single-family residential water customers that used over one million gallons in 2009. It doesn't mention that its own publisher and its publisher emeritus are among that number, using (according to their database) 2,258,000 and 2,763,000 gallons respectively. Thanks to both of them for giving us the chance to explore this data on their website.

This is encouraging news: Both Tulsa school board incumbents have drawn opponents for re-election. All too often school board members are returned to office with little if any scrutiny of their service. The election is this Tuesday, February 9, 2010. Because both seats drew only two candidates, there's no need to hold a runoff in April.

There's a clear choice in the District 7 election, where Lois Jacobs is challenging incumbent Matt Livingood.

Matt Livingood, 58, a Democrat and an attorney, was the ringleader pushing for the board's lawsuit against the state's charter school law, a fruitless and expensive attack on expanded educational opportunities for Tulsa's schoolchildren. For that reason alone, Livingood should be turned out of office.

Lois Jacobs, 58, a Republican and a dentist, supports expanding charter schools -- publicly funded, but independently operated schools -- in the Tulsa district. Jacobs advocates a focus on classroom performance and reductions in the district's administrative overhead. Jacobs supports cutting administrator pay, saying that "no one in education should be making more than the governor." She also supports cutting travel by administrators. She opposes a school bond issue that would raise property taxes.

During the 2008 campaign cycle, Jacobs contributed to Republican presidential candidates Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo. Federal donor records for Livingood shows a small contribution to Doug Dodd for Congress in 2002. (Neither Anna America nor Bobbie Gray show up in the opensecrets.org database of contributions to federal candidates.)

The lawsuit cost Tulsa Public Schools over $100,000 in legal fees alone. When the board voted not to appeal a court ruling against their suit, Superintendent Keith Ballard hinted that the Tulsa district's apparent hostility to charter schools could cost TPS both private and federal grant money:

Superintendent Keith Ballard said: "The only thing I've ever said is that we are involved in several exciting ventures -- including (a new partnership with) Teach for America and (being selected as a grant finalist by the) Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and traditionally these organizations have been supportive of charters.

"Also, President Obama and (U.S. Secretary of Education) Arne Duncan have made it clear that they support charter schools, and they control a lot of (stimulus package) money, and we are involved in a race for the top money. I've said that this could enter into it, and I think that's an accurate statement."

When the Oklahoma Legislature passed a law in 2007 allowing universities to sponsor charter schools, they tried to address the constitutional concerns that lawsuit backers claimed as motivation for the suit, but the legislature's effort was greeted with more lawsuit threats:

"I'm extremely disappointed in the Tulsa school board for challenging this bill, especially since it helps address the constitutional concerns that they raised last year," said Rep. Tad Jones, R-Claremore, who chairs the House Education Committee.

Jones said HB 1589 was written in response to constitutional questions that were raised by the Tulsa school board about the state's original charter school law. The bill reduced the number of counties where new charter schools could open to just Oklahoma and Tulsa counties, but added universities to the list of entities that could sponsor charter schools.

Rep. Jabar Shumate, who represents portions of north Tulsa, echoed Jones' sentiments, saying, "A lawsuit on an issue like this would be a colossal waste of money. Instead of money going toward helping our failing north Tulsa schools, they want to put the money in the pockets of attorneys. Once again, it's our students who lose out."

Shumate believes that the new charter schools law seems to be constitutional. "There are many laws on the books with population restrictions, and that's all were talking about with this charter schools law," he said. "And those laws have been upheld by the state Supreme Court."

Bobbie Gray, 58, a Republican, is the other incumbent on Tuesday's ballot. Gray also supported the lawsuit attacking charter schools. Her vote to end the suit was reluctant:

During Monday's meeting, board member Bobbie Gray said she believed in the principles behind the lawsuit and was disappointed that the board had to end it.

"I believe that by continuing with this lawsuit, that not only are we jeopardizing any future relationships that we have with our Legislature -- because they don't understand what this is -- but any opportunities that may be coming to the children of this district," Gray said.

Thanks in part to Gray and Livingood, Tulsa lags far behind Oklahoma City in offering educational choices. Oklahoma City has 14 charter schools; Tulsa has 4.

Gray was previously a member of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, where she was a predictable vote on the wrong side of controversial issues. Bobbie Gray also signed the recall petition to oust District 6 City Councilor Jim Mautino. (Her full name is Roberta A. Gray.)

There are good reasons to retire Bobbie Gray after 14 years on the school board. But don't think that a vote for Anna America (46, a Democrat) is a vote for the kind of reform that the Tulsa district needs.

Now, I like Anna America and her husband, Metropolitan Environmental Trust director Michael Patton. I've interacted with them in the civic sphere over the last 10 years. Anna would bring a perspective to the school board, that (as far as I know) is currently lacking -- she has children currently enrolled in TPS, both at Eisenhower International School. She expresses support for charter schools.

But in the years I've known her, I've never seen Anna America take a stand against the status quo and the local establishment. And for all the commentary on her campaign website, she has nothing to say about the heart of TPS's problems -- curriculum, educational philosophy, and classroom discipline.

Tulsa's children need a structured learning environment and a solid foundation at the elementary level in basic knowledge and skills. Decades of dabbling in educational fads (often driven by curriculum vendors looking to boost sales) have made TPS a district where smart kids with involved parents do OK, but kids without those advantages get left behind. There was a time in our nation's history when public schools provided every student, even those from rotten home situations, with a solid, basic education in an orderly atmosphere. To find that kind of environment today, you have to go to charter schools or private schools. No amount of money or technology can compensate for a defective educational philosophy.

Steven Roemerman received an e-mail last week from Susan Harris of the Tulsa Metro Chamber, noting that former Mayor Kathy Taylor was trying to raise last-minute funds for Anna America. The e-mail also provided brief details of how to give to Matt Livingood and Bobbie Gray, but nothing was said about Lois Jacobs. The clear focus of the e-mail was getting Anna America elected.

MORE:

The Tulsa World, generally supportive of the "throw more money at the problem" approach to educational improvement, has endorsed Livingood and America.

The Tulsa Beacon has endorsed Lois Jacobs, but made no endorsement in the America/Gray race. Here is the Beacon's story on the two school board races.

The Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association, the union local affiliate of the left-wing National Educational Association and Oklahoma Educational Association, endorsed Livingood but made no endorsement in the Gray/America race, saying "we were very impressed with both" candidates.

OK-SAFE sent a questionnaire to all the candidates. Jacobs and Livingood responded; America and Gray did not.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: In January 2007, Jamie Pierson, a graduate of the Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences (a charter high school), responded in her Urban Tulsa Weekly column to the Tulsa School Board vote to place a moratorium on the creation of new charter schools or the expansion of existing charter schools.

Kristin and Nathan Pickard, the Brady Heights couple whose 30-day experiment in commuting through Tulsa by bicycle is nearing its end, were profiled by Holly Wall in the latest (February 1, 2010) issue of Tulsa Business Journal.

If you haven't visited their blog in a while, you'll want to get caught up and see how Nathan and Kristin tackled the aftermath of the big ice and snow storm and dealt with cabin fever.

ALSO in TBJ this week:

A story on the challenges of adaptive reuse of older buildings, such as Wallace Engineering in the Brady Bob Wills District, Joe Momma's Pizza in the Blue Dome District, and the Mayo Building at 5th & Main.

A sidebar on form-based codes and appropriate infill.

American Majority's Tulsa candidate training seminar, originally scheduled for just before Christmas, will be held in two Saturdays, on February 20, 2010, from 8:30 to 4:00. It will be at the Tulsa Technology Center Lemley Campus, in the Career Services Center, at 3638 S Memorial. There is a registration fee (see below).

There will also be an American Majority activist training seminar in Tulsa this Tuesday night, February 9, 2010, 6:30 - 9 p.m., at St. James Methodist, 111th & Yale. This event is free of charge.

Here are the details for the activist training event:

American Majority Oklahoma together with OK for Tea is pleased to announce that an Activist Training will be held on Tuesday, February 9th in Tulsa, OK for citizens looking to make a difference in their community, state and nation.

The seminar will be held at St. James United Methodist Church located at 5050 E. 111th Street in Tulsa. Registration for the event will begin at 6:15 pm, with the first session beginning at 6:30 pm. The seminar will end at approximately 9:00 pm. This cost for this training is FREE and open to the public.

American Majority Activist Trainings are designed specifically to educate and unite liberty-minded activists from around the state by giving them practical ideas for successful activism and equipping them with creative ways to be more effective in their communities.

Topics for the seminars include: "Building Coalitions and Organizing Events", "Hitting the Campaign Trail", and "Holding Elected Officials Accountable through Effective Communication"

Upon completion of the seminar, participants will receive complimentary continuing education materials, communications curriculum, and a list of recommended reading materials to become better equipped and stronger activists in their communities.

To RSVP for the event or for more information, contact Trait Thompson with American Majority Oklahoma at 918-289-0159 (e-mail: trait@americanmajority.org).

Here are the details for the candidate training event:

Every elected official, from school board member to state legislator to the President of the United States plays a vital role in shaping the policies and direction of our communities, states, and nation. These offices deserve men and women who are grounded in the principles of liberty and individual freedom.

American Majority Oklahoma is hosting a Candidate Training on Saturday, February 20 at Tulsa Technology Center (Business and Career Development Training Center) located at 3638 S. Memorial in Tulsa. The training will run from 8:30am to 4:00pm with registration beginning at 8:00am.

Regardless of campaign experience, American Majority's Candidate Training Program makes running for office easier! American Majority Candidate Training Seminars are designed specifically to educate candidates on every level how to run effective and victorious campaigns and prepare them to become successful elected officials.

The Candidate Training Program includes:

• Lectures* from campaign veterans, including:
• "Your Campaign Plan to Win: Planning for the Time, People and Money to Win."
• "Dollars and Sense: Fundraising for What You Need, Not What You Can Get."
• "New Media Engagement: The New Ways to Talk to Voters and Engage Supporters."
• "Grassroots Action: How Ordinary People can get Extraordinary Results."
• "American Majority's Core Principles."
• Personalized communications training.
• Interaction with individuals thoroughly involved with the issues confronting your state.
• The opportunity to network with other liberty-minded candidates.
• A complimentary resource guidebook full of material designed to further assist candidates.

Upon completion of the seminar, candidates will receive continuing education materials, access to podcasts and other presentations, communications curriculum, and suggestions to help them utilize think-tank resources.

The cost is $50 per candidate/first attendee in advance or $75 per candidate/first attendee at the door, and $25 for each additional attendee (spouse, campaign staff, campaign volunteers, etc.) in advance or $40 for each additional attendee (spouse, campaign staff, campaign volunteers, etc.) at the door. Space is limited.

Please click here to use our online reservation system and secure your place now! If you have any questions, please contact Trait Thompson at Trait@americanmajority.org or call (918)-289-0159.

American Majority is a non-profit and non-partisan organization whose mission is to train and equip a national network of leaders committed to individual freedom through limited government and the free market.

*Lectures are subject to change

(Sorry to be so late in posting this.)

The Tulsa County Republican Party is holding an open county-wide meeting at the Tulsa Technology Center Lemley Campus, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010, 9 a.m. Party officials will give an update on local party activities, and many candidates running in 2010 will be there. Speechifying, I am told, will be kept to a minimum. Here are the details:

The Tulsa County Republican Party will hold a county wide meeting and rally this Saturday, February 6, 2010 beginning at 9:00 am. There will be numerous GOP primary candidates in attendance allowing voters time to meet and speak with the candidates. This event will be held at the Tulsa Technology Center; Lemley Campus located at 3420 S. Memorial in Tulsa and should be completed by 11:00 am. A short survey will be conduced asking GOP voters what they think about national, state and local issues involving government and the Republican Party in general. Included in the survey will be a straw poll involving open seats in 2010 at the national, state and local levels. The meeting will include information on the progress of the Tulsa County Republican Party over the past year and on plans for the remainder of 2010. 2010 is a BIG year for Republicans and we encourage everyone to attend this important meeting.

Mike Ford has a timely word:

ATTN: CONSERVATIVES

The email FWDs won't change policy.

Talk radio is not community participation.

The GOP cannot be blamed for ignoring our values if we do not show up and promote them.

Time to get plugged in and active.

Save the Party, Save the Nation.

Listening to last week's radio reports of slick roads brought to mind a commercial parody from back when Michael DelGiorno hosted the morning show on 1170 KFAQ, back during Tulsa's last budget crisis, early in the Bill LaFortune administration. A 911 caller with a police emergency was told by the dispatcher that because the city was on "Operation Slick Budget," an officer couldn't respond to the call.

It's not quite that bad, but police response to certain calls will decrease as a result of Tulsa Police Department layoffs, according to a TPD press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For More Information Contact
Officer Jason Willingham
February 4, 2010
918.596.1336

Due to the recent reductions in staffing, the Tulsa Police Department has been forced to evaluate ways to maintain the staffing levels in order to respond to priority 911 calls. As a result, the department has temporarily suspended responding to certain property crimes and report calls.

Officers will not respond to non-injury collisions, fraud and forgery reports, burglary from vehicle reports, larceny reports and other minor property crime reports. The exception to this new policy will be a non-injury collision involving an intoxicated driver, or a non-injury collision involving a disturbance or other crime. Officers will respond to calls for service if the crime is in progress or if a suspect is still at the location.

While we understand that this may not be a popular decision, it is important to continue to have adequate manpower to respond to higher priority calls and crimes against a person. This change will be revisited as the department recovers form these difficult times.

Crime Reports can be filed electronically at the Tulsa Police Department website www.tulsapolice.org or call the Non-emergency number at 596- 9222 for other reporting options.

Oklahoma 1st District Congressman John Sullivan has introduced a resolution (H. Res. 1063) targeting the individual health insurance mandate, one of the components of the Democratic Party health insurance proposal that passed the U. S. Senate in December, according to a news release on Sullivan's House website, issued today:

"My resolution builds off the efforts of at least 36 state legislatures, including Oklahoma, that are looking to limit or oppose health mandates in the House and Senate passed health care reform bills that would require purchase of government approved health insurance. These state actions are in direct opposition to the draconian national health care reform measures that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are negotiating behind closed doors behind the backs of the American people"

"Throughout the healthcare debate, the Administration and this Congress have largely ignored the most fundamental question of all - whether or not the federal government is overstepping its constitutional bounds by taking over our healthcare system " Sullivan said. "Even back in 1994, the non partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) wrote that it would be an unprecedented form of federal action for Congress to mandate that all individuals are required to purchase health insurance. I introduced this resolution to send a strong message that the personal mandates in both the House and Senate passed healthcare bills are unprecedented and unconstitutional - nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the power to force Americans to purchase a good or service or enter into a contract - which these bills would do. By forcing Americans to purchase government approved health insurance, President Obama and Democrat leaders in Congress are essentially saying that you don't have a right to choose what health insurance plan is best for you, your family or your business - I strongly disagree."

The Citizens in Charge Foundation has issued its 2010 report card on voter initiative rights in each of the states. (The full state-by-state report is an 8.2 MB PDF. The flag pictures are pretty -- I always like to see the old-fashioned font, with the arched A, used for OKLAHOMA, instead of the Star Trek original series font -- but they make the document much bigger than necessary.)

Oklahoma was given a C+: Oklahoma gets high marks constitutional guarantee of the right to propose constitutional amendments and ordinary statutes by petition, and to petition for a referendum to repeal a statute, and for including all political subdivisions under its constitutional provisions.

But Oklahoma loses points for an insufficient period for gathering signatures (only 90 days -- second shortest) and a high signature requirement (15% of the last general election for constitutional amendments -- the nation's highest requirement); both provisions make it difficult for grassroots initiatives to make it to the ballot. The report card recommends increasing the signature-gathering period to at least 9 months, reducing the signature requirements to 8% for constitutional amendments and 5% for simple statutes, and tying the signature requirement to the last election for governor, rather than the last general election.

Oklahoma ranks among the toughest states to qualify an initiative for the ballot, with the nation's highest signature requirement and second shortest circulation period. A proposed expansion of the petition period overwhelmingly passed the state legislature in 2009, but was vetoed by the governor. That same year a bill passed that moves the process for challenging the ballot title for an initiative to before signatures are collected, instead of afterward. Additionally, legislators placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2010 allowing voters to decide whether to tie the number of signatures needed to the last election for Governor. Currently the number is tied to the highest office in the preceding elections, which resulted in a 37 percent increase in the number of signatures needed after the 2008 presidential election.

I'm surprised the report didn't mention the controversy over TABOR and the Oklahoma Three, which had to do with the use of out-of-state petition circulators for the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights proposal. The issue of out-of-state circulators is mentioned in several other states' report cards. The need for paid circulators would diminish if a longer signature period and lower signature requirements were adopted.

I'm happy to see that the opportunity to challenge an initiative's ballot title has been moved earlier in the process. It would be frustrating to go through the trouble of collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures, only to have the measure struck down by a court.

(Hat tip to Bob Weeks at WichitaLiberty.org, who reports that Kansas received low marks -- Kansas has local initiative and referendum, but not at the state level.)

UPDATE: Jason Carini informs us in the comments that there is a state question on the ballot that will improve matters some what. It doesn't change the percentages, but it does eliminate presidential election turnout as a basis for the number of required signatures. If SQ 750 passes, only turnout in the last governor's election will be used to determine signature requirements. This PDF shows the amendment to Article V, Section 2 of the Oklahoma Constitution proposed by SQ 750. Here is the approved ballot language for SQ 750:

This measure amends a section of the State Constitution. The section deals with initiative petitions. It also deals with referendum petitions. It deals with how many signatures are required on such petitions. It changes that requirement.

"Initiative" is the right to propose laws and constitutional amendments.
"Referendum" is the right to reject a law passed by the Legislature.

The following voter signature requirements apply.
8% must sign to propose law
15% must sign to propose to change the State Constitution.
5% must sign to order a referendum.

These percentages are based upon the State office receiving the most total votes at the last General Election. The measure changes this basis. The measure's basis uses every other General Election. General Elections are held every two years. The Governor is on the ballot every four years. The measure's basis only uses General Elections with the Governor on the ballot.

The President is on the ballot in intervening General Elections. The measure's basis does not use General Elections with the President on the ballot.

More votes are usually cast at Presidential General Elections. Thus, the measure would generally have a lowering effect on the number of required signatures.

You can read all the state questions on the Oklahoma Secretary of State's website.

A series of meetings about PLANiTULSA, the proposed new comprehensive plan for the City of Tulsa, will be held in each city council district starting tonight and continuing over the next two weeks, hosted by the district councilor. Here's the schedule:

Day/Date	Time	Dist	Councilor/Aide	Location
Tues/2 Feb	6 - 7:30 pm	4	Barnes/John Fothergill	Kendall-Whittier Library 21 S Lewis Ave
Tues/2 Feb	6 to 8 pm	1	Henderson/Allecia Chatman-Ratliff	Rudisill Regional Library 1520 N Hartford
Wed/3 Feb	6 to 8 pm	6	Mautino/Shannon Compton	East Central High School 12150 East 11th Street
Wed/3 Feb	6 to 8 pm	3	Turner/Allecia Chatman-Ratliff	Maxwell Community Center 5251 E. Newton Street (Pine & Yale area)
Mon/8 Feb	6 to 8 pm	7	Eagleton/Shannon Compton	Memorial High School 5840 South Hudson Avenue
Tues/9 Feb	6 - 7:30 pm	2	Westcott/John Fothergill	Christ the Redeemer Lutheran Church 2550 E 71st
Wed/10 Feb	6 to 8 pm	8	Christiansen/Nick Doctor	Hardesty Regional Library 8316 E 93rd St
Tues/16 Feb	6 to 8 pm	9	Bynum/Nick Doctor	Church of the Madalene 3188 E 22nd Street
Tues/16 Feb	6 to 8 pm	5	Trail/Jan Megee	Nathan Hale High School 6960 East 21st Street

The meetings will include a presentation of the process, concepts, plan elements, and maps. Although these meetings are not public hearings, staff will field questions and comments. 

The official process of deciding whether this plan will be officially adopted as the City of Tulsa's Comprehensive Plan begins with a public hearing before the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (TMAPC). The TMAPC hearing will begin on Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. and will be continued to Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.  The TMAPC will make a recommendation (adoption, adoption with amendments, rejection) to the City Council, which has the final decision.

You can review the latest drafts of the PLANiTULSA vision, policy plan, and maps, and submit your comments, at PLANiTULSA.org. 

I've been negligent in reminding you about an excellent source for information about current issues at Tulsa's City Hall. Tulsa District 7 City Councilor John Eagleton has a personal website, johneagleton.com, where he posts some of the data and analysis that inform his decisions as a councilor.

The latest article on the site features graphs comparing the growth of Tulsa's general fund spending compared to inflation. One graph reveals how increases in costs per person have driven overall growth of the budget. Between 2002 and 2010, police personal services budget per employee grew by 35%, compared to an increase in the cost of living of 19% over the same period. (The fire department personal services budget per employee grew by 23% over those years.)

Other recent articles feature a comparison of the cost of providing ambulance service through EMSA vs. through the Tulsa Fire Department, emails from Tulsans about the budget crisis, and a graph showing how Tulsa police ticket writing has dropped dramatically over the last three years, even more dramatically since last October.

For most entries, there's a PDF or spreadsheet you can download for more details.

There's also a blog, with links to articles (often from the Wall Street Journal) that Eagleton finds interesting.

Photographer Erin Conrad has decided to blog every day this month:

That seems like an appropriate thing to do for the shortest month in the year.

Blog every day of it.

So perhaps I should try to do the same -- get back in the habit of posting on a daily basis. (Erin's posts are bound to be prettier than mine, but I'll post anyway.) So here's a roundup:

Speaking of Erin Conrad, she posted a very sweet photo on Sunday.

Tulsa area bloggers are gathering at Joe Momma's Pizza downtown (1st & Elgin) on Thursday, February 4, 2010. 40 bloggers have RSVPed, and now there are some contests and prizes to encourage even more to attend.

@TashaDoesTulsa has a Twitter list of independent Tulsa businesses to which you can subscribe, as well as a list of Twittering Oklahoma bloggers.

One of those blogging tweeters, Cindy W. Morrison, encourages her fellow bloggers to take a 31-day challenge to optimize our blogs with social media.

And if you're an Oklahoma-based blogger, the deadline for nominations for the Okie Blog Awards is Wednesday, February 3, 2010.

Tulsa Gal has a biographical sketch of Alfred E. Aaronson, a founder of the Tulsa Historical Society and leader in the development of Tulsa's city-county library system. Earlier, she took a stroll down Boston Avenue's past.

Irritated Tulsan seeks your votes for January's Tulsan of the Month. And Mr. M (with the munching mouth) frolics in the snow.

Yogi's Den has a collection of stunning photos from the Hubble Space Telescope. Don't be worried by the URL -- it's all safe for work.

You can always find the latest posts from a selection of Tulsa-based blogs on my BatesLine Tulsa headlines page.

If you were paying attention to world news in 1980 and 1981, you know of Lech Wałęsa, the man who turned an illegal independent trade union into a force for freedom in communist Poland. Although his efforts directly resulted in his imprisonment and the imposition of martial law, in 1988 he and his allies pushed the communist government into allowing semi-free parliamentary elections, and by the following year, Poland had its first non-Communist prime minister since before World War II. He served a five-year term as President of Poland from 1990-1995.

This past week, Wałęsa came to Chicago to campaign on behalf of Adam Andrzejewski, a Republican candidate for Governor of Illinois. This eight-minute video features excerpts from his speech at a fundraiser for Andrzejewski and from an interview with FoundingBloggers.com. Worth noting:

1. Wałęsa's concern about the weakening of American leadership and what it means for the rest of the world:

The United States is the only superpower. Today they lead the world, nobody has any doubts about it, militarily. They also lead the economically, but they're getting weak. But they don't lead morally and politically any more.

The world has no leadership. The United States was always the last resort of hope for all other nations. This was the hope, that when ever something was going wrong, we could always count on the United States. Today we've lost that hope.

2. Wałęsa's concern about corruption and waste in government -- bureaucrats increasing governmental power for its own sake, wasting money, at the expense of entrepreneurs. He also expressed concern that the bank bailout showed a "little bit" of America moving toward socialism.

3. Andrzejewski's plan to use an executive order to put government spending online in real-time "from the appropriation to the subcontractor level, where the systemic corruption exists." Without knowing the specifics of Illinois' situation, this suggests a scheme where contracts would be awarded to companies with no apparent political connections, but those prime contractors would then award all the work and most of the contract value to politically connected subcontractors, where it would be harder to trace.

Andrzejewski's plan to issue an executive order for a forensic audit of Illinois state government's $55 billion budget. He calls it "a deep audit, an evidentiary audit. It actually follows the money. If you think about it, it's how we caught Al Capone." He estimates it would save taxpayers $3 to $5 billion.

He mentions that Kathleen Sebelius, as Governor of Kansas, ordered such an audit. Here's the mention on his website:

Good government relies on forensic auditing. The governor of Kansas- kept her promise to "perform a top-to-bottom audit of state government--an effort that to date has uncovered $159 million in wasteful government spending, and led to new efficiencies that produced over $1 billion in budget savings on behalf of Kansas taxpayers."

Adam Andrzejewski has an inspiring background. He and his brother saw a need -- phone books focused on small communities, so that local merchants could reach local customers -- a proceeded to build a successful nationwide business. Read more about Adam Andrzejewski at RedState. And here's a 2006 article from Success magazine about the Andrzejewski brothers. (The article is about balancing the long hours required to start a business with time for family -- worth reading even if you're not interested in the political angle.)

The election is Tuesday, and the latest Republican primary polls have Andrzejewski surging within 2 points of the leader, State Sen. Kirk Dillard, a political insider who endorsed Barack Obama for president. It's a crowded field of six candidates, and there is no runoff. Someone may very well win the primary with 20% of the vote.

David Schuttler has posted some pretty pictures of Tulsa's January 2010 ice and snow storm.

As the weather gets worse, it's less likely I'll be able to post here at BatesLine, but as long as I have a cellphone connection, I can post brief updates on Twitter. You can follow my "tweets" (Twitter updates) by clicking this link: @BatesLine.

By consensus, tweets about the Oklahoma ice storm will be marked with "#okice". To see the latest tweets with this tag, click this link: #okice.

Several Oklahoma bloggers have set up a "crowdsourced" Google map at okicemap.com to show Oklahoma weather, road, and power conditions. Follow @okicemap on Twitter. (The moderator could use some help in keeping the map up to date. If you have time and some experience working with Google Maps, click the link and drop him a line.)

For northeastern Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas, visit the website of the National Weather Service in Tulsa. For central and western Oklahoma, visit the website of the National Weather Service in Norman.

MORE: Because this is a complex weather system, and the amounts and types of precipitation are hard to predect, The National Weather Service in Tulsa would like you to submit precipitation reports via their website.

I realize there are other things in the news tonight -- the FOP turning down the City of Tulsa's alternative to layoffs, the State of the Union show -- but my mind has been focused on getting my family ready for what could be a week or so without power.

In 2007, many homes lost their connection to the grid, and the need for electricians to make repairs delayed restoration of power for many Tulsans for more than a week. Even without that kind of damage at our house, we were without power for half a week. Thankfully, we've had plenty of warning, and there are reports that PSO is already mobilizing repair crews in preparation for storm damage.

We've stocked up on food, particularly calorie-dense, non-perishable stuff. We've almost finished getting all the laundry done. (Thanks, Tasha, for that excellent suggestion.) We're about done arranging the living room as sleeping quarters, close to the gas fireplace. One thing I didn't find that would be useful -- D batteries. Every store I was in today was completely out of them.

The latest (as of about 10 pm) ice forecast from the National Weather Service office in Tulsa is looking a little better -- still about a half-inch of ice, but wind speeds are projected to be about half what was previously forecast. Tulsa County is still in the 3 to 4 range for the SPIA Index -- likely power outages lasting anywhere from 1 to 10 days.

The Tulsa National Weather Service office website has a very helpful feature -- the Decision Support Page. There's a grid showing at a glance what kinds of hazardous weather are projected over the next seven days, and what the projected intensity is. Click on a button in the grid and it will take you to a page with more detail. The Decision Support Page also has a link to the latest multimedia briefing from the NWS. (As far as I could find, the Norman NWS website didn't have anything quite like this.)

Here are the latest ice accumulation maps from the NWS:

The latest update from the NWS has the freezing rain zone shifted northward, with Tulsa County in the 4 and 5 zone. Nearly everything north of I-40 would be either SPIA 4 or 5, with little to no ice south of I-40.

The latest forecast also drops the forecast snowfall for Tulsa from nearly a foot down to 4".

It would be really nice if either the cold front or the Pacific Ocean storm would get here well ahead of the other. It's their simultaneous arrival that threatens to mess things up badly.

The National Weather Service office in Tulsa posted another informative ice storm forecast briefing at 5 pm on Tuesday. This one is twice as long, shows the two weather systems that are on course to collide right over Oklahoma, explains some of the uncertainties in the timing of the storm, and goes into detail of the forecast timing of the arrival of rain, then freezing rain, then sleet, then snow around our region.

The local NWS office deserves praise for putting together an in-depth presentation in such a useful format. It's basically a Powerpoint slideshow with audio narration, using a software product called Articulate Presenter 6.0.1. You can easily skip back and forth between slides -- you don't have to sit through the entire 16 minutes to get the info you need.

(If you're clicking that link on Wednesday mid-morning or later, the briefing will have been replaced by an updated forecast.) (I enjoy using the future perfect tense when I have the opportunity.)

If the latest forecast holds, it's good news for Tulsa, terrible news for southern Okmulgee, Okfuskee, and Muskogee counties.

The black zones are level 5 on the 5 point Sperry Piltz Ice Accumulation index:

"Catastrophic damage to entire exposed utility systems, including both distribution and transmission networks. Outages could last several weeks in some areas. Shelters needed."

The latest briefing made the point repeatedly that the line between minimal ice and catastrophic ice could easily move a couple of counties north or south. It all depends on the movement of the storm, still off the California coast, and the timing of the arrival of the cold front.

GET READY: To help with your preparations, Tasha Does Tulsa has a list of what to have on hand during an Oklahoma ice storm. Tasha links to all the official sources and the standard lists (water, batteries, candles, non-perishable food) and adds several excellent suggestions drawn from her experience during Tulsa's last major ice storm in December 2007.

It's gonna be bad. Ice -- enough, with the forecast wind speeds, to cause significant power outages of the sort we had in December 2007 -- followed by lots of snow and single-digit temperatures. At least, that's what our local weatherfolk are predicting.

Click the link to view a 7-minute weather briefing from the National Weather Service Tulsa office, from this morning (Jan 26, 2010) at 9 a.m.

Here's that ice accumulation map from the briefing.

The storm that is expected to cause this mess is still over the Pacific Ocean, and how it moves once it hits land, and the timing of its arrival with respect to the timing of a cold front, will determine how bad the results are. This morning's National Weather Service briefing predicts about a half inch of ice and 7.5" of snow for Tulsa. The worst of the ice (but not as much snow) will be further southeast, following a line cutting through the heart of Okfuskee and Okmulgee Counties, northwestern Muskogee County, southern and eastern Wagoner County, western and northern Cherokee County, northern Adair County, and Arkansas' Washington County. Winds throughout the region are forecast to be about 25 MPH.

The ice and wind would combine to result in a Sperry-Piltz Ice Accumulation Index of 3 or more for all of northeastern Oklahoma (except for northern Osage, northern Washington, Nowata, Craig, Ottawa, Pushmataha, and LeFlore counties). That value is defined as, "Numerous utility interruptions with some damage to main feeder lines and equipment expected. Tree limb damage is excessive. Outages lasting 1-5 days."

For the band of the worst ice I mentioned above, their SPIA index is 4: "Prolonged & widespread utility interruptions awith extensive damage to main distribution feeder lines & some high voltage transmission lines/structures. Outages lasting 5-10 days."

Here's a map showing SPIA index values projected for Thursday/Thursday night:

Alan Crone of KOTV News on 6 explains the storm and its likely impact.

Crone says right now the ice and sleet portion of the storm will most likely occur south of the I-44 corridor.

Freezing rain will eventually transition into sleet Thursday afternoon and then to snow Thursday afternoon and evening before ending Friday morning.

Crone says there are areas of northern Oklahoma which could see 12+ inches of snow. Snowfall near Tulsa could be from 8 inches to more than a foot.

Areas south and east of Tulsa will have lesser amounts of snow.

Other forecasts vary.

Weather Channel forecast for Tulsa shows an overnight low of 34 on Wednesday night / Thursday morning, but the temp dropping to 32 by 9 a.m. Thursday with rain becoming freezing rain.

Accuweather expects freezing rain off and on between noon and 6 pm Thursday, followed by snow -- possibly 9".

Here's what Intellicast says:

Details for Thursday, January 28: Mix of rain and freezing rain. Highs in the mid 30s and lows in the low 20s.
Details for Friday, January 29: Cloudy. Highs in the low 30s and lows in the upper single digits.

Will this be worse than 2007? Last time around, when our power went out, I sent my wife and kids off to the in-laws in Arkansas, where they never lost power. My recollection is that the roads were not that bad; it was just that the ice and wind were bad enough to take down powerlines. I hunkered down at home in front of the gas fireplace and took hot showers by battery-powered lantern. My office had power, and so did many stores and restaurants, so there were places to escape during the day. When my sister got power, I stayed one night (Wednesday) with them and planned to stay a second, but the power came on as I was stopping back by the house to pick up a couple of things. As bad as it was, it could have been worse. Hopefully it won't be that bad this time around.

But given that Tulsa is in that meteorological sweet spot between cold northern air and warm, moist southern air, and thus prone to ice storms, shouldn't we be thinking harder about burying those power lines?